The best drama in London of late has been in the government-subsidized wings. Last June 29, London’s Sunday Times announced on its front page, “Exit Nunn and Hall in cash row,” promptly unleashing a torrent of debate. Trevor Nunn and Peter Hall—the artistic directors of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre respectively—were, the article alleged, being asked to step down amidst cries that they had used government monies to grease their own palms. Amadeus, said the paper, had made Hall a millionaire at the theater’s expense, netting him over three million dollars as against the theater’s $750,000. Nicholas Nickleby and, especially, Les Misérables were said to be doing the same for Nunn, who was profiting disproportionately to the theater that spawned those shows. In addition, the RSC as a whole was said to be suffering since its leader, Nunn, was abandoning ship whenever possible to direct glitzy, glossy musicals: Cats, Starlight Express, and, most recently, Chess, the last in a bail-out deal with the Shubert Organization, which co-produced last summer’s failed American tour of Nicholas Nickleby. Both men—blared the press—had sullied the waters of subsidy in a country which this year will give £338 million ($541 million) from the national treasury to the arts, much of it through the (ostensibly) apolitical Arts Council. Owing to the primacy of the government’s role in funding the arts, institutions which benefit from this huge subsidy are publicly accountable. Thus, no amount of directorial denials or